A New Roswell Solution?

Well, we have a new solution to the Roswell case. No, it’s not a weather balloon as the Army Air Forces claimed in 1947 and no, it’s not a Project Mogul balloon that many skeptics and the Air Force have claimed, starting with Robert Todd in the early 1990s (or late 1980s) but something called a satelloon. This was, is, a huge polyethylene balloon that had been covered with a thin layer of aluminum to enhance the reflective properties and create a passive communications satellite or something like that.

Dr. Bob W. Gross appeared this last week (June 12) on Martin Willis’ show, UFO Live. Gross, who had lived in New Mexico from 2001 to 2010 and who traveled all over the state, thought that he had the solution to the Roswell case. Naturally, I was skeptical. You can listen here (Roswell begins in the second hour):

https://podcastufo.com/podcast/306-dr-bob-w-gross/

And you can read more about his theories here:

An Extraterrestrial Flying Disk Crashed Near Roswell in 1947: Not a UFO

An Extraterrestrial Flying Disk Crashed Near Roswell in 1947: Not a UFO -PT2-

Here’s the problem as I see it. Gross has cherry-picked his evidence to bolster his theory. He talked of the debris field and the metallic residue that had been collected there. These were fragments of one of these aluminumized balloons that had exploded and rained down the debris or so he claimed. Apparently, they can explode. See:

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4308/ch6.htm

But the problem is that he has currently failed to mention the other debris found there as described to me by Bill Brazel. Brazel said:

There was only three items involved. Something on the order of balsa wood and something on the order of heavy gauge monofilament fishing line and a little piece of… it wasn’t really aluminum foil and it wasn’t really lead foil but it was on that order…

Bill Brazel. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle.

While the piece of aluminum-like material could have been the remains of one of these satelloons, the other two pieces were not. According to Brazel, you could shine a light in one end and have it come out the other, or, in other words, he was talking about fiber optics. And the balsa like material was so strong that he couldn’t get a shaving using his pocket knife.

Gross also said that these satelloons took on a disk shape, at least the early versions did and that some of them were tested in New Mexico, hidden in the Mogul arrays. In my many communications with Charles Moore, among others, nothing like that was ever mentioned, and I suspect that if the Air Force could have connected these two events together, they would have done so.

Charles Moore. Photo copyright by
Kevin Randle.

The real problem with this theory is that I can find nothing to support the idea that the testing was going on in New Mexico in 1947. In fact, there is quite the history available on the topic and the research around it. You can find more about all this and Project Echo satelloons here:

https://greg.org/archive/2007/10/07/the-satelloons-of-project-echo-must-find-satelloons.html

And the history of these “Giant Spheres” here:

http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/27/foer.php

And here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/nasas-early-inflatable-spacecraft-the-satelloon/71362/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100302165926.htm

And to confuse the issue even more, or maybe clarify some of the research into it, take a look at this:

http://badufos.blogspot.com/2017/09/another-nonsensical-explanation-for.html#comment-form

While I can find nothing that suggests any of this was going on in 1947, Gross alluded to witnesses and documents that could do that. If true, then he might have something. However, it is difficult to ignore the information about the debris provided by Brazel and Jesse Marcel, Sr., and several others who handled it in 1947, which doesn’t fit with his descriptions.

And, while Gross said that he found no testimony of anyone seeing the flying saucer crash, there are those who reported seeing a more intact structure, not on the debris field, but on a secondary site some distance away. 

No, the problem is that all the information that I have been able to find does not put any of these strange balloons in New Mexico in 1947. Unless he can do that, this falls into the same category of the anthropomorphic dummies that Captain James McAndrew used in his attempt to explain the bodies reported by some of the witnesses. The timing is just flat wrong. If the dummies weren’t being dropped in 1947 and the satelloons weren’t being tested in 1947, then the explanations fail at that point. We must wait, however, for Gross to provide the additional documentation and witnesses that he claims to have before providing a final analysis. That will be coming in his book.

Zamora vs People

Last night, while appearing on Martin Willis’ Podcast UFO (see http://podcastufo.com/about/) to talk about Encounters in the Desert, I had a chance to speak with Ray Stanford. I believe Ray is the last surviving investigator or witness who was on the site of the Socorro UFO landing in the days that

Martin Willis

followed. He provided some interesting insight to what he had seen and done but there was one point that he made, which is that Lonnie Zamora had never used the word “people” to refer to the figures he had seen near the landed craft.

I did know, based on my research, that FBI agent Arthur Byrnes had suggested to Zamora that he might not want to mention those creatures because he might find himself the butt of jokes. UFOs in the sky were fine, and landed craft were okay, but the actual sighting of the crew on the outside was just too hard for some to accept. This gave rise to the idea that Zamora had only seen white coveralls in the distance and had seen no real detail.

While I suggested that the official file did provide a number of words for the crew, Ray insisted that people wasn’t one of them. He objected strongly to that word, though I’m not sure why. He did say that in his discussions with Zamora, only the word “figures” had been used.

As they often say, “Let’s go to the video tape,” which, of course, doesn’t exactly apply here but we can go the documents created at the time. What do they say about this?

Coral and Jim Lorenzen had been in Socorro within 48 hours of the landing and had the opportunity to interview Zamora. In the May 1964 issue of The A.P.R.O. Bulletin, she wrote that she had asked Zamora about what he had seen. He said he hadn’t seen any “little men,” which is not the word people but does move us beyond “figures.”

When Lorenzen pointed out that he had already described them in the press and that description had been published, he expanded on it, saying that they looked like “young boys” or “small adults.” I will go out on a limb here and point out that the quotation marks are used in that article suggesting that they are the words of Zamora. Still not people, but moving us even closer.

In the Project Blue Book files there are various reports written by a number of men. In one of those documents, dated May 13, 1964, written just over two weeks after the event, it says, “At this point he saw two people in white coveralls…” That moves us directly to the use of the word. The document was written by Colonel Eric T. de Jonckheere. His name surfaces in a number of reports of UFOs besides the one in Socorro.

But the use of the term is not in quotation marks and it could be argued that de Jonckheere had interpreted what Zamora said to mean people although he hadn’t used that specific word. Fair enough.

In a report written by Major William Connor, who has been identified as the Public Information Officer at Kirtland AFB but whose job was probably a bit more significant, wrote in his report that Zamora said, “The only time I saw these two persons was when I stopped… These persons appeared normal in shape – but possible they were small adults or large kids.”

In another document, either written by Zamora, or dictated by him, he said, “Saw two people in white coveralls very close to the object. One of these persons seemed to turn and look straight at my car and seemed startled…”

Although it was argued that these weren’t exactly Zamora’s words, they are in quotation marks that suggest that they were. In that document, which is a partial transcript of what Zamora had told those first investigations, it seems that he did use “people” to describe the beings.

Other documents, however, seem to cloud the issue. T/Sgt David Moody, the Air Force investigator on the scene, wrote in his undated report, “…it [the craft] appeared to be a thing on four pronged legs and the two white things (described as coveralls) were no longer visible.”

This, of course, moves us away from people, but by the time Moody had arrived, Zamora had become reluctant to talk about seeing anything at all. But the newspapers were not reluctant to print stories about the landing. The Alamogordo Daily News reported that Zamora “saw two ‘men’ adjacent to it wearing white suits.”

The Albuquerque Tribune, on April 25, the day after the sighting, reported, “Moving close he [Zamora] saw two figures…”

Interestingly, the Albuquerque Journal reported on April 27, “Zamora denied that he had seen any little creatures around the object…”

Later in that same article, however, Zamora talked about seeing white coveralls near the craft. According to the article, “…whether anything was in them he did not know.”

Now we have moved from a debate about whether Zamora ever said “people” in relation to the figures he had seen to a denial that he had seen anything other than the craft and white coveralls. This, of course, reflects the confusion of the time and the suggestion by Byrnes that Zamora might be better off he said nothing about the alien beings.

The El Paso Herald-Post, reinforced the white coveralls without anything in them on April 27. According to that article, “Zamora said he also saw what looked like white coveralls but could not tell if anyone – or anything – was in them.”

Finally, the Socorro Defensor Chieftain reported that Zamora has seen two persons near the object in a gully. Given that it was the local newspaper, you would think that one of their reporters or the editor would have interviewed Zamora, but there are no direct quotes from him, though others, such as Captain Richard Holder are quoted. The only thing about the beings in quotation marks are the words, “child-like.’”

The point here, maybe unnecessarily, is that according to the documentation from 1964, within days of the sighting, Zamora had used a number of words to describe the beings he saw. One of those documents, in the Project Blue Book files, is a transcript of Zamora’s testimony and while it might not have been tape recorded, it is a transcript of his words. He said they were “people.” He also said they were “child-like,” and said they were “persons,” but he also said they were figures, and it is clear that after he talked with the government officials, he said that he had only seen “white coveralls.”

But the real point, one that is missed as we drive deep into the weeds, is that Zamora said he saw two beings, two humanoids, standing near the craft and that once they returned inside, it lifted off with a roar. We can argue about the precise words, but that only hides the real issue. Zamora was talking about something that was very strange and it frightened him badly.

You can read the full Socorro landing story and review the words of Lonnie Zamora here:

https://www.amazon.com/Encounter-Desert-Alien-Contact-Socorro/dp/1632651130/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508096455&sr=8-1&keywords=encounter+in+the+desert